Talks with Sri Aurobindo

14 SEPTEMBER 1940

PURANI: Anilbaran says you have written in The Mother that one has to be an instrument of the Divine.

SRI AUROBINDO: But that is about work only. An individual is not only an instrument. He is a lover (Bhakta) and knower (Jnani) as well. If I have written about the instrument, I have also written about effort and rejection in the earlier part. If he says that passivity is an intermediate stage, that is another matter. Otherwise, by simple passivity you expose yourself to various forces, as Lele did, thinking that everything is being done by the Divine.

PURANI: Besides, one can't lift one passage out of its context and apply it in a general way.

SRI AUROBINDO: I have very clearly said that the individuals not an automaton. His consent is required. He has to be a conscious, living and consenting instrument. I think Anilbaran is unconsciously influenced by the Advaita idea of the One being real and the Many being Maya. The One is real and the Many are also real, just bacause the One is real. If that is correct, then the individual must be real.

PURANI: Yes, otherwise there is no individuality. Each one would be like everyone else.

SRI AUROBINDO: If he says the individual is a passive automaton, one may ask, "What are you doing all the time?" or "There is no you, is there?"

PURANI: Another point he wants to know: you have spoken of two Mayas, the higher and the lower. He is asking where one goes after passing beyond both. To the Akshara?

SRI AUROBINDO: Damn the Kshara and Akshara. Why does he want to bring in the Akshara? One overpasses the higher Maya and goes to the Transcendent. First, as I said, one embraces the lower Maya to overpass it and then one overpasses the higher—Para Prakriti—after embracing it.

SATYENDRA: He seems to be influenced by the Gita.

PURANI: Yes, so he wants to know if, after overpassing these Mayas, one can remain in Akshara Purusha.

SRI AUROBINDO: He can if he wants to. But that is withdrawing from all Nature, not transcending it. You have to pass through all these aspects to go to the originating Source.

EVENING

A quotation was supplied from The Life Divine ⁶ in which the individual is described as a dynamo or channel and afterwards is merged in the Cosmic. Sri Aurobindo read the passage.

SRI AUROBINDO: There is no difficulty. I have said here, "the dynamo selected"—I haven't said who selects. It may be the Divine Will or Nature. And even when the individual is merged in the Cosmic, the individual character remains. But the question of selective action of the individual doesn't arise from this passage.

All this took place before the walk. Afterwards, when Sri Aurobindo sat on the bed, Champaklal beckoned to me to give him the chamber-pot as he occasionally needed it after the exercise. I was hesitant. Then he himself asked for it. Dr. Becharlal had not noticed it and so Champaklal gave him a call too. As Champaklal was insisting on it, all of us, including Sri Aurobindo, looked at Champaklal and laughed.

SRI AUROBINDO: The question is now: who Calls? The dynamo, Nature or Champaklal? If not Champaklal, is it I or Nature? (Laughter) But I think it is Champaklal because my need was not urgent. (Laughter, and Champaklal abashed)

Take the example of a machine. The machine is driven by an electric force. Now, is the Force driving the machine or is there a man behind it? Whichever it is, if a pig is put into the machine to be cut up, the machine will put out bacon or sausages. It won't put out anything else. You can't make the machine move like a train. It has its own characteristics according to which it will work. If such be the case with a machine, how much more so with man who is conscious being? It makes it all the more complicated. And even if an individual is a perfect automaton, a passive instrument of the Divine Will, here too he has to act only according to that Will. He has to reject and choose amongst all other forces which are not that. Then he performs the action of rejection. He is no more an automaton. And his very calling for the Divine Grace may be an interference.

SATYENDRA: Besides, one has first to know what the Divine Will is.

SRI AUROBINDO: Quite so. It is true that ultimately everything works out according to the Divine Will and fulfils the Divine Purpose. But that doesn't mean that the individual has no choice, no selection.

SATYENDRA: These are truths of a higher spiritual consciousness where one knows what the Divine Will is and sees or perceives it acting everywhere through Nature.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, here in the Ignorance there are various forces and possibilities and one has to choose from all these. When the soul came into the manifestation, it was not that God threw it down on earth by force, but that the soul willingly chose to come down. There was no compulsion by the Divine.

Anilbaran may be influenced by the determinism of Nature in the Gita. But that is not the whole thing. There the Purusha also comes in. The Purusha may dissent to something but still Nature carries it out or the Purusha may assent to it while Nature refuses. That is what happens in Yoga. Nature goes on repeating its own habits and preferences against the Purusha's consent till the power of the Purusha so increases that it can assert itself over the Prakriri. Anilbaran may also be speaking from an ideal point of view, but there too discrimination by the individual comes in. Will you remember all that?

PURANI (laughing): At least I will remember the substance.

SRI AUROBINDO: Have you read Anilbaran's article in the Vedanta Kesari? I just glanced through it. He says that it is the soul that enjoys and suffers—a very astounding remark to make. And he seems also to have said that the soul is wholly responsible for a new mind, life and body in the next birth. What then becomes of the Karma theory? Surely the editor will contradict him.

PURANI: I haven't read it. I will go through it. But how can he say that the Soul enjoys and suffers?

SRI AUROBINDO: In a way you can say that the soul takes up the essence or Rasa of all experiences, holds and supports them. But the way he has put it, makes the soul subject to the experiences. Anilbaran has a fighting mind, so his statements are put in such a way as to evoke protest, contradictions, etc.

If the soul or the psychic being took an entirely new mind, vital and body, then the law of Karma would not be binding in the next life. It is not a tabula rasa that it begins with. It collects and gathers from the past life's experiences whatever is necessary for the next life, adds what new force it can bring in and takes up a new instrument to fulfil that evolution.